Modes of domination and relations of power: a Bourdieusian analysis of Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio's El Jarama, Armando López Salinas's La mina and Juan García Hortelano's Tormenta de verano

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  • March 20, 2019
Creator
  • Riordan-Gonçalves, Julia
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Romance Studies
Abstract
  • This dissertation examines the role of cultural values and practices in the creation and maintenance of social hierarchies under the Franco dictatorship, and the critical and transformative aspects of Spanish social realism in Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio's El Jarama (1955), Armando López Salinas's La mina (1959), and Juan García Hortelano's Tormenta de verano (1962). Applying Pierre Bourdieu's writings on society and culture to analyze each novel, this study enhances understanding of the literary portrayal of social relations and cultural norms under the dictatorial regime, and demonstrates how political and social oppression were maintained, not only by force, but also through society's acceptance of the ruling ideology about how it should function. Contrary to some previous critical assessments of the three novels, this analysis demonstrates that these texts voiced protest and subversion of the dictatorship's power. The use of Bourdieu's cultural theory in this project shows through the novels how sociopolitical inequalities existed in Franco's Spain and were perpetuated by differential material conditions and individual subjective perceptions that tended to accept such differences. This project examines the cultural, social and economic differences depicted in each text, and how these differential objective conditions manifest themselves in the characters. This analysis reveals the nature of the social hierarchy at the time and how it operated through oppression to maintain an unequal power structure, with no significant challenge to the way society functioned since all the characters tended not to recognize their role in the perpetuation of the hierarchy of distinction and privilege. This dissertation provides insight into the nature of the Franco dictatorship as portrayed in social realist narratives, offering further understanding of the failings of the regime. The three novels considered in this project, as well as similar social realist narratives, formed a body of protest literature that sought recognition of the nature of the dictatorship and the social hierarchy, as well as society's role in maintaining them, and emphasized the exercise of individual agency to promote change.
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  • In Copyright
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  • "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Languages (Spanish)."
Advisor
  • Collins, Marsha Suzan
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  • Chapel Hill, NC
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  • Open access
Date uploaded
  • March 18, 2013

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